Page 197 - Comparing Political Communication Theories, Cases, and Challenge

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Local Political Communication

electronic media market, and that local papers therefore rely more
on attention-catching formats than in Germany. Yet again, infor-
mative studies are lacking on this topic.
A third example for underresearched areas of locally specific media

is the new wave of “community media” generated by Internet-based
technology. We have indicators that Internet-based local communi-
cation initiatives not only flourish in many communities but that,
albeit depending on the broader political and social environment,
some of these initiatives also explore new participatory venues and
generate activist politics in these communities (Lang 2003b). Local
political communication research needs to investigate which en-
vironments are most conducive to such initiatives, how they re-
late to established media, and what their effects are in terms of a
more participatory local political culture. We can suspect that local
governance regimes with a longer tradition of experimenting with
alternative participation venues are more prone to embrace those
initiatives than governance regimes of a more closed or corporatist
type.

In sum, only a comparative perspective highlights the characteristics of
local media publics and displays their embeddedness in political and
cultural environments.

Mediatization of Local Politics – Repoliticization
of Local Media?
Beyond the obvious trend toward professionalization of political and
public communication there looms the larger issue of how specific gov-
ernance regimes utilize these resources. Does local government make
efforts to use public communication techniques to foster better infor-
mation and more engagement, or do we see glossy brochures and Web
sites with little content and minimal intervention options for citizens?
What kind of relationships do specific governance regimes establish with
the local media? Do the two work hand in hand or do we see a more
neutral or even confrontational arrangement in which the local media
have kept independent research angles and framing capacities? And what
strategies emerge from the media side as organizations are confronted
increasingly with demands to become more active players in the local
public, and help stimulate civic engagement and deliberative processes
within the community (Rosen 1994; Merritt 1998, 3–4)? In the United
States, over the past decade, 200 local communities have experimented

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